The SFFaudio Podcast #830 – The Gods Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Mark Nelson for (LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged audiobook (8 hours 33 minutes), followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Alex (Pulpcovers)
Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in All-Story, January-May 1913, the first book, 1912, ten years have gone by, A Princess Of Mars, the atmosphere processor, Cohagen, kicked back to earth, told to his nephew Edgar Rice Burroughs, strange mausoleum, dead on the bluff, coffin, strict instructions, shrug, I was back on Mars!, ends on a cliffhanger, two manuscripts with him, no more gettin stuck places, know how much you love my writin, couldn’t bare to leave my wife, kidnapped again, ignore the fact there are 8 more backs after this?, what happened to Woola, Woola stayed home, alive enough to make it to the air factory, goes with Dejah to the white apes, first book guy, a dog of mars, The Dogs Of Mars, Jack London’s becoming a wild white ape dog, lizard dog thing, tusks, don’t read series, some interesting stuff in here, the black man pirate, gives the mythology or biology of the creation of the peoples of mars, very Edgar Rice Burroughs, crazy crazy stuff, as a mythology, world tree, Babylonian, very cool, favourite John Carter story, shaved a couple of the rough corners off, coincidence level, utterly shameless, and there he was on a whole planet, any direction will take you north, drift for two days, random direction, a smaller planet than earth, the Little Prince, if he runs really quick and jumps he can see the top of his own head, the nested fake religion conspiracy thing, real heaven over there, Gulliver Of Mars, mental hospital, Edwin Lester Arnold, [The Wonderful Adventures Of] Phra The Phoenician, it’s funny, sillier, not as heroic, more ridiculous, library action, weird gender stuff, polar area, glaciers, deposit their stuff in glacial lakes, collecting all their jewelry, heaven is fake, very similar to what we have here, eaten by plant men, limited ecosystem, very few vegetables, drink plant milk eat vegan cheese, one of the lower races, totally soy, Thark nutrition, saved in the desert by finding this milkweed, dead world, dying world, been dying for a million years, an old world, ecology is all used up, seas dried up, it’s fun, very silly, go with it, ten years?, I’m back!, meets his best bud, here’s my son, how martian years are different, is his son 5 years old?, hatches, a white egg, monotrim?, monotreme wife, hatch ready to fight, egg grows over time, nutrient packed, advanced martian biology, must take a lot out of a woman, Carthoris, jumped the shark, a few other things, gets pirates wrong again, fake pirates, the black pirates that live on the moon, super-advanced, extinct volcano, c they don’t eat themselves, yellow people, cross breed, black, white and yellow martians, Borderlands, movie that nobody likes, too long, didn’t need going back to Helium, chopping down 50 plant men, put in prison for a year, tunnels of Mars, just enough time to build a whole bunch of battleships, 1000 ships, little boats, Tars Tarkas says: I got my dudes, not just airships, also submarines, retrofitted, never seen water, they had a guy, the radium revolvers, the bullets are all handmade by Thark maidens, Afghanistan/Pakistan, ancient weapons, but radium?, the new hotness, not explosive, poisoned to death, radium explained, martian hieroglyphic means radium, explosive on mars, no helium involved, all transliterated, by our co-author, all mistakes, astrocharts, not going to bore you with that, late huge footnote, don’t want to throw the story off, the number of days, the Martian day, the Martian year, pulled it up in the encyclopedia, that footnote, this was the popular media at the time, people were a lot smarter back then, weird ideas, racism, eugenics, getting dumber, getting less literate, other media, without having to pre-learn, computer or video games, most consumable media, rizz skibidi toilet happening, long hand with a quill, the good stuff, more work, average text, at the time of the American revolution, high gothic English, written by people trained on high classics, more accessible, produce easier text, not complete rot, but pretty rotten, becomes verbal, Joss Whedon dialogue, books written in the last 10 years, raised on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, to make somebody cool, raised on sitcoms, I heard this about this book, The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, that just happened, Godzilla Minus One (2023), John Scalzi writing a teenage girl, probably got a couple of teenage daughters, swore off of David Brin, guy looking at a computer screen describing a battle in another solar system, uplift stuff, read Lester Del Rey’s story [The Faithful], treading water, Will’s essay about the other book, weird American morality, something going on, summarize, hot take, Thark green man culture, breeds haphazardly, like snakes having sex, the chieftan directs who mates with whom, the greatest warrior ever accidently falls in love, queer in context, quote tweeting, being heteronormative is queer, raise your own kids in an atomic family (very queer), on purpose?, horrible place, break with tradition, adaptations, Del Comics adaptation of this book, completely dressed from head to toe, frogman with gloves on, wearing pants, it doesn’t make sense to dress them unless, it was the fifties, nudity, Dynamite Deja Thoris, naked Deja Thoris on every cover, mostly naked, not very memorable, the art’s nice, Edgar Rice Burroughs tic, preHeinlein Heinlein Tarzan and Barsoom, nudism, bodily transported to mars with his clothes on, the excuse, astral projection, real body on the other end, ghost planet, a transporter, his old body is also left behind, prudism, issues with that movie, not completely nude, not a settler colonialist, gone native, bringing his own, you and I can be friends, Woola can be my dog like an earth dog, normalizing certain aspects of American and earth culture, don’t believe in this bad religion, a reformer, he doesn’t bring his Christianity with him, the gods eating, reverse communion, blasphemous, Abraham and Isaac, give me you son I’m hungry, blog post, that’s against your culture, change the culture in a positive way, is Burroughs doing that on purpose?, bring them back to the good way, cave castle, raises his own baby, they’re almost communists, they’re the kind of communism, anything I don’t like is communism, you won’t raise your own child, a hobby horse against communism, The Moon Maid, Tarzan The Invincible, I’m here for you, swearing your lives, I’ll be your slave, the slaves were thrilled, I get stand behind your missing wife’s seat, Thuvia Maid Of Mars, that’s not weird, I’m in love with your dad, childhood fascination?, 600 year old, time works strangely on Mars, always looking thirty, never explained, put a lot of stuff into this first book, telepathy, that one time, immortal, it did the opposite, the most boring part of the book to read, interesting, so deep into the book, five miles away, a full mile, as close packed, very orderly, neither scoffs nor plaudits, tried by an impartial body of nobles, footnote 1, 840am earth time, whenever Captain Carter…, many martian tables, this vast fund, it will add nothing of interest, adhere to the original manuscript, the martian day is a trifle over, ten equal parts, revolutionary French, Jacobins, commencing the day at 6am Earth time, 200 brief periods of time, seconds?, yep, fifty zats one zoad, fifty zats in a zoad, 200 tals in a zat, a key to understanding how he wrote this, suddenly realized, the only footnote in the whole book, this is not Tolkien, writing as fast as he can, oh hang on, what did I do, he’s on a typewriter!, when you can just do it this way, that’s a lot of work, Will’s Foundation readthrough essay, Paul Krugman, something about being evil, portrays a profound disrespect for people, wanted to be a psychohistorian, when Asimov was writing that story, one day a New York Times columnists is going to be inspired by my writing, in the context of Will’s essay, it’s liches, liches are evil because they try to control the living even they’re dead, 10 jews per semester and no blacks of you want my money, find a workaround, the stupid codicils in the will, strange and ridiculous, I can write better rot than that, more coherent, would we have been way better off?, we wouldn’t get a lot of the text, how many books did Tolkien published, two novels, not meant for publication, a lot less stuff, meant to be ephemeral, wipe your butt with the pages, goes in the digested, before writing, Under The Moons Of Mars, letterhead for a failed business, Heinlein’s story too, so many of these old authors, spent 2 years in the merchant marines, invented a new kind of helicopter, wrote these 12 crime novels, don’t tell the truth, somebody’s, dress it up in frilly clothes, plant men at their email jobs, laptop class plant men, unconsciously, how he would like to interact with reality, wants to have a good friend, a son (but wouldn’t like to raise them), come on to him, oblivious to it, I will have all your eggs, I’m married to a literal princess, weird food for the black pirates, Sola and his relationship, these creatures from Mars, in various forms of dress and undress, thought it was hot, 4 boobs, thark muscle mommy, orc muscle mommy, let them be, she was teaching him, low position, all coincidences, special, coincidentally special, killing plant men for the first ten minutes and white apes, white ape action, too long, too much, the manipulation of the stuff, surgery in the next book?, growin guys in vats, yellow martians, trying to find Dejah Thoris, had an egg somewhere, why she named him, I didn’t know you were pregnant, stand and watch the egg together, watch it grow, probably done with this series, a lot of filler, have to be in the dungeon for a year, another year, very manipulative, on a sentence and scene level, the airship battle at the end, that got Will, visualizing it, in the 1970s for playing rpgs, matter replicator, play with miniatures, big airship battle, actual tactics, maneuver like this, an anchor, Sola fell off, a nice soft mountain, because coincidence, very hardy 12 feet tall, boobs and ass, the Burroughs bibliophiles, an important science fiction writer, space opera after him, planetary romance, in the atmosphere, five hard science fiction books you have to read, The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, rockets, handwavium, a rocket program, Rocket Ship Galileo, if this goes on jum jum jum […], here’s a set of ideas, let’s play, Howard writing a Kull story, just is happening, the part of the brain that’s stimulated, sense of wonder, so many stars, the end of the Clarke story, The Nine Billion Names Of God, if these monks are right, an Isaac Asimov story, the same idea, if you could calculate, good writing, character stuff, way too long, worldbuilding, people disagree, fantasy story with science fiction tropes, telepathy was a science fiction trope, discovering things, turns out no, very popular bad idea, Alfred Bester, this is not doing that, kill people with my sword, let’s go, fun vibe, keeps you reading, changing Mars to be more compatible with Edgar Rice Burroughs morality, likes his titles, The Cave Girl, duchess, what if we flip this around, a martian comes to Earth, a thark or redman or white ape comes to earth, meets a waitress, side of a highway in Iowa, insists that she’s a princess, maybe she has a kid, you de-princessize her, a low woman who needs to pay the bills, lives in a trailer, the morality of mars to earth, traditional thark thoughts, one of many woman, go plant your egg in that field over there, falling apart instantly, what if we switch genders, switch classes, what we see in relief, Heinlein’s novel, Stranger In A Strange Land, Superman, the best culture: Kansas culture, weirdness magnet, hidden hand controlling his destiny, blue kryptonite, a kabbalistic connection to the letters LL, not a comedy, cute, cosy, action packed, noble, this story, the culture is even more alien, playful, more Mary Suey, making it so the reader can, I’m not John Carter, reuniting with my family, being locked in dungeons for years, supersane, chained to the wall, his muscles are fine, isometric exercises, no food, have to eat each other, Issus, so fluffy and frothy, barely in the book, in more scenes than many, clearly his story, the protagonist, unneeded, the mythology was really good, does he go on to impose or prop up, the books get weirder and weirder, Thurn high priest, the temple of the Sun, not a finished book, ridiculous cliffhanger, son has adventures, Thuvia Maid Of Mars, their daughter has a book, mad scientists, a fighting man of mars, weird adventuer, spider heads, he’s fun, create a new America, I’m a great guy, emancipating the slaves, an old Virginian, Burroughs or John Carter, he wants to be a noble of some kind, read the hold canon, the impression, not unusually racist, he’s nice to his slaves, no black men in the first book, the next book, they’re all bald, wear the wig with the crown, used to be blonde, they dress up for each other, oh my god, so cool, with regard to the slaves, gladiatorial stuff, people who speak for them, so bored she didn’t even open her eyes, didn’t have to bother looking, half way through the book?, slave uprising in the arena, this is actual science fiction right here, teaching students how to use chat gpt properly, given assignments that are ridiculous, whatever it writes, this is too much, reform it and refine it, can you do my homework for me, the blacks don’t produce anything, really interesting, she wasn’t even watching the combat, there are some even who have slaves who talk to them, transpiring within the arena, the firstborn do no work, the men fight, the women do nothing, absolutely nothing, with closed eyes, not tech, replace the word slave with robot, magically science fiction, robots wash them, robots feed them, with closed eyes, we see this with kings, learn to read, there are slaves for that, you have to read the actual message from your kid, to see that signature, trust with your own eyes, think about this a lot, a little dose of mainstream media, pre-digest your thoughts, she’s the biggest person on substack, Barry Weiss on Joe Rogan, he is an “Assad toady”, she didn’t know what the word meant, what predigested news does for you, wash your own laundry, when I want your opinion I’ll give it to you, fix my car, takes a lot of training, if you haven’t done it, all these topics, some jobs require some skills to be learned, essay writing, good jobs, fucked if I know, work in tech, written a lot, wrote a ton of essays, a real skill that helps you in a lot of places, put your thought coherently together, the tricks to get the results that they want, do you want this to be interesting and good for you, or good for your teacher, more flourishing, the short term, you need five paragraphs and this number of words, students don’t even know what the word essay means, A Modest Proposal, pushing away the joke, doubles down and doubles down, I propose we start eating the babies, coherent sentences, hitting word counts, way more to say or way less to say, how to say five different ways to say “in addition”, checkpoints they have to go through, how Will ended up writing essays, learned to like it, writing is fun, writing ideas, worked with Will a lot, how to communicate clearly, you’re lucky, a coherent person, columnist for the New York Times, any kinda good, communicate clearly in writing, building fences and fixing cars, more shop class, languages, a lot of that is weird liability stuff, bandsaw, can’t let them do it, fear is hugely driving things in society, more bad writing as chat gpt takes over, unfeasible to fund it, complete in five years, those jobs to make that shit, what a robot thinks about something, what’s the capital of Katmandu?, some of the questions make no sense, are those popular questions that were asked, they do nothing, no moral agenda behind it, so strange, how rich and decadent they are, if Robert E. Howard were writing this, The Slithering Shadow, decadent city state, ivs of opium all day, wtf you guys doin?, I’m busy fighting this slither shadow, that’s just how it is, I got my opium, much more of the science fiction writer, set on another planet, strong ideas he’s trying to work through, almost essay style arguments, when we eventually get to Rogues In The House, Murders In The Rue Morgue?, C. August Dupin, The God In The Bowl, Burroughs is deep too, levels to it, he hasn’t teased them out, he’s just shooting them, this is Robert E. Howard doing a gothic and having Conan hating every minute of it, a hobby horse against gothic fiction, frustrated the whole time, even Frost Giant’s Daughter, the siren, the tease, steaming on a platter, fuck that, I’m Conan, you can’t escape me, almost a rape story, why can’t we read this in school, a long list of things they want to put in your brain and this is not it, Burroughs taught in school, maybe shop class, fence making class, chicken breeding, anti-classical education, an elective on posting, a classical education in high school, doing it on our this podcast, The Symposium, three years of classical philosophy, very powerful, participate in a lot of weird conversations, make cocktails, vintage art guy, extracted what little juice was in this dry planet, at some point, all the insane coincidence, there’s the exact thing I needed, half-way across the solar system, exact same prison cell as my son, so brazen about it you can’t get man, the most deus thing that ever got machinaed, one big coincidence, two people survived, this is bad writing, my god how amazing is this, every piece fits together, The Terminator, more fun, not as good as a film, the more you elaborate on it, every piece fits, why is this happening, that word was created by him hearing it from himself, that’s just how it is, no clothes, no clothes, handwavium, I don’t understand tech stuff, every part of that story fits, an embellisment, the exact same beats, how the pacing is identical scene for scene, one is here to protect, I’ll be back, not a horror movie and not a b-movie, a car chase, a truck chase, crushed in the crushing factor, melted in a melting factory, 2200 word story, something not set in our conventional world, he’s not crafting a story, trying to tell you a fun story, going on adventures, so many other modes, mystery series, the mystery, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, sandwich making and a lot of clues, The Hound Of The Baskervilles is a terrific terrific novel, a Nancy Drew style story, yard sales, 10 cents a book, art inside, cool covers, boys solving mysteries, one boy, the Encyclopedia Brown books, a knock off for even younger kids, who stole the bike, I’ve solved the mystery, got some trivia wrong, civil war saber, General Robert E. Lee, first Battle of Bull Run, The Battle Of First Manassas, Futurama, Wikipedia Brown, mode of mystery, H. Beam Piper novel Murder In The Gunroom, an Encyclopedia Brown story, the key to the mystery, weird menace show, Robert Silverberg and Test-Tube Frankenstein by Wayne Robbins, gonna be on it, so fuckin good, a Philip K. Dick horror story with Lovecraftian monsters, I have a story to tell you, rogue scientist, grinding up earthworms and making them into something, the guy he’s talking to is the earthworm, no mermaids in this story, Mistress Of The Dark Pool, find of the last five years, get the word out, very fast, listen to most of the story, so compelling, not the perfect way of doing it, slightly improved by framing device, tack on on he ending, the best excuse ever for taking a lady’s shirt off, can’t see anything they don’t get to see, replicate the outside, W. Wayne Robbins, goodness ahead, pretty much done, classic bookshelf, The Tower Treasure, later development, whole bunch of Tom Swifts for sale, The Asteroid Pirates, Victor Appleton, Victor Appleton II, The Shore Road Mystery, The Missing Chums, The House On The Cliff, LibriVox, why aren’t we bookin that guys?, four hours five minutes, one of the boys is thumbing his thumb, check out that thing, get a load of this guy, lady running down the hill away from the tower, criminals to justice, emdash, aiding their parent very materially, his loot had been secreted, The Three Investigators, Alfred Hitchcock as a character, estate locked down, 1964-1987, rewritten, complain about them, this minefield, shelf of Nancy Drews, 50s rewrite, edited them to death, a big account, people see it, the impossible to find first editions, the original, couldn’t be re-copyrighted, Franklin W. Dixon, rewritten, two Nancy Drews, every page was different, every sentence was changed, read it to your kid, people complain because it is different, changing the dates in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, not an author, Carolyn Keene, ghost written, improvements that way, we’ll find out, November 24th, December 1?, that predictable, make some coffee, do some editing, 1:20, too late in the day, went to bed at 9pm, just go with it, up til like 3am, sleep-in, a good little podcast, pick your brain, current SF stories, this is nice violence, making fun of AOC, HMU, hit me up, there’s that too, science fiction is short stories not novels (generally), Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, a series, funny silly agendas, an excuse, Planet Of The Apes, neanderthal comes forward in time, falls in love, gay cavemen need to reproduce, he doesn’t know how to write humans, a lot of representation, my friend the security guard is an Indian from India, he wears a turban, they’re not like the way you project them to be, standalone books, blew me socks off, Golden Fleece, a starship, murder mystery, narrated by the computer, last few years, kinda dumb in the way many pretty smart people are, gonna live forever, Ray Kurzweil: not a smart man, not even on a cope, it’s a hope, I’m gonna live forever is not a cope it is denial, secular version of heaven, a paperback, Quintaglio Ascension trilogy, tiny dinosaurs on a moon of another planet, an analog for a scientist, Far-Seer, he’s Galileo, no humans in this book, really into dinosaurs, child-like, neanderthal fetish, when did the neanderthal touch you in a loving way?, sharing the earth with other minds, literary fiction novel, Claire Cameron, The Last Neanderthal, woman archaeologist, make the book longer garbage, just like fire, [incest], her neanderthal beliefs, big words, make your vocal chords tired, The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov, probably like Hominids, planned as a trilogy, Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson, Iceman (1984), Encino Man (1992), put him in a dome, cave-man Truman Show, unfrozen cave man movie, a nice length, John Lone, 10,000 BC (2008), Alpha the first dog, cave boy separated from his people, read an actual book, how you gonna find it, hear it from somebody you don’t have contempt for, need to know more, paleoanthropologists are hard to meet, get no work?, set on earth, Clan Of The Cave Bear (1986), wistful longing, Shogun, hand can’t span the spine, very doable, the original Pierre Boulle Planet Of The Apes, an inversion of what you see in the movie, and short, 1963, more recent reboots, current series, 246 pages in English, an abbreviated version, Science Fiction Encyclopedia, laptop, probably burdened down by the horrible operating system, Tiny 11, MacOS, the garbage never installed, people are fixing things, we can fix it, finding out about that, how many years, you would never find it, searching for weird shit, you’ve heard of Linux, who runs Linux?, whaevah, The Aeneid, The Odyssey is one of the best books anybody can read, programmatic and propagandistic, the end with the genocide, everyone should read old books, what’s the oldest book you’ve ever read?, the early parts of the bible, contemporaneous, 8th century BC, Gilgamesh, always finding new parts, James Gunn’s From Gilgamesh To Wells, Bryan Alexander is in Mexico City doing his Mexican futurism, trying Out Of The Silent Planet again, riffing hard on Voyage Top Arcturus, he calls out wells several times, Stapledon looms over it, 1938, The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, age of Book of Genesis, 1400 bc, Moses, a redacted literary work, 400 bc, has great parts, boring parts, read The Odyssey in high school, a tv program of it, a great character, fun adventures, every island, go to university for 20 years, stop taking history, literature and science classes, math, a weird physics class, know about physics, the physics texts written by the physics dudes, readable, post-Einsteinian physics, what does physics need to know about me?, material science, how can we solve this problem, some it is just cost, hard to dig up and process, aluminum used to be the most expensive metal, more valuable than gold, now as cheap as dirt made from dirt, titanium, the price of titanium, mixing metals together, lots of great physics stuff to learn, doesn’t really matter what class it is as long as the teacher is good, the quality of the physics teachers in Michio Kaku, the science popularizes, worse than dumb rocks, not caring about facts, string theory is bullshit, nobody would say that for 30 fucking years, buzzword, there are things we don’t know why things happen, come up with a theory, come up with a hypothesis, if that’s true then…, is gravity a particle, gravitons, if we can detect a graviton, a particle and not a wave, we don’t know the answers, everything else is happening in other dimensions, the don’t fuckin test it, a collider the size of the solar system, nobody calls em on it, subscribing to Scientific American and Popular Science, some of this is scams, flying cars are here, they’re not in your backyard, this other kind of flying car, four engines where the wheels would be, re-on the cover of Popular Science, never ever fuckin happened, you need electric engines like drones and lithium batteries to make a flying car a viable thing, these are fly by wire, sensors, limiters, in the fifties they had flying jeeps, Neil Armstrong, helicopter blades beneath him, put soldiers on those to fly into battle, bird strike, blade of grass anything will kill you, a cool looking mockup, most of the people in physics, mock up of flying cars, keep paying me, that’s something else, a religious scam, the guy at the front: you’re all going to heaven you don’t need to read the paperwork, string theory, it’s coming along, a scam, in production right now, they’re basically drones, but you sit in the drone, there’s no market for them, fly in the sky over your suburb, operating drones, traffic rules for the sky, how crotchety and elderly the system of laws is, probably be Africa, where they’re interested in getting shit done and not feathering their own nests, more like golf carts, more like RVs or ATVs, used in the countrysides for farmers, check fence-lines, flying car guy knew what the problem was, using conventional engines, light enough batteries, gasoline is super energy dense, diesel, bunker fuel, kerosene is less, you can put them all over the spars, filled with batteries, just a few more years, not noticing they’ve run the same fucking article for 25 years, find a way to test this, the quantum theory is the result of Einstein’s stuff, the many worlds hypothesis, at the fundamental nature of reality, vibrating fibers, outer space as being the absence of something, coming into creation, bubbles of particles, brief existences, Wikipedia string theory, a theoretical framework, 1 dimension objects, when we scroll down, looking for the where’s your tests, brane theory, m-theory, supergravity, matrix theory, Stephen Hawking, another failed guy, entropy formula, counting microstates, an important test of any theory of quantum gravity, doing math not physics, phenomenology, no experimental evidence, pretty damning sentence, some in the community, question the value, what heaven will be like, in my father’s house there are many mansions, how many bathrooms are in those mansions, does it come with bidets?, just give em some more money, extremely high energies need, they proliferate, mansions have more than one bathroom, that’s what they’re doing, looking at the facts then doing bullshit, not science at that point, thought experiments, the table has a glass on it, the glass has water in it, the water is wobbling, everybody is playing this game of what’s making the water move, that’s a story, where’s the evidence for it?, Mr Bad, formula on a t-shirt, e=mcsquared has damaged a lot of brains, their castles in the air are bullshit, you can do all of this, you can see how it was constructed, hidden stories behind the construction of the stories, what it was, there are facts of the matter, way easier game to play, get some cool ideas out of it sometimes, cuz they don’t have any other ideas and it is funded, somebody enjoys funding theoretical physics, interested in science, the excuse for why they can get a caveman to modern times, a hollow chamber full of heavy water, neutrino detector, the neanderthal in question is also a physicist, Illegal Alien, Royal Ontario Museum, can we prove that god exists, a paleontologist, first human to alien contact, a spiderlike alien arrives, large collection of fossils, gather evidence for the existence of god, the same five cataclysmic events, an atheist, not what you want to read right now, so what do you think?, it’s a mystery, keep it a mystery, spoil is thoughts, smart but not smart like me, not wise, smart = wisest, how do you measure wisdom, Jesse particles, emitting them, to measure personal wisdom, concerning difficult behaviors, what is the San Diego wisdom scale, high validity, make predictions very easily, renowned and acclaimed, they think it makes them sound better, a passover word, my critically acclaimed debut novel, the New York Times says, an ok person, an accident, how they used to have Theodore Sturgeon, evil NIH website, healthy aging, abstract, not complete?, the answer to this is no, mechanical turk, as we grow older, do not rush, 28 questions, I’m good at perceiving how others are feeling, I have trouble making decisions, make snap decisions, a harder one for Jesse, others look to me, go out more, don’t talk to the raccoons talk to the neighbours, a wise quality, a neutral response, always wants help, 2-seater car, can’t help her move, bad boundaries, conflict, I have trouble thinking clearly when I am upset, don’t be upset, when was the last time you were upset?, is angry upset?, a couple of years ago, there is no existence of the soul after death, why would their be?, nebulous, soul is a synonym for spirit, still exists rather than lives on, all word games, others say I give good advice, wearing the uniform, therapists shouldn’t give advice, life coach, windows or apple, probably windows unfortunately, unable to do either, try not to make decisions, I remain calm under pressure, I have trouble thinking when I am upset, don’t be under pressure, when lifting weights, I enjoy learning things about other cultures, when they have this many questions, getting at it, asking the same thing different ways, I’m closed minded, I can’t learn, I tend to postpone making major decisions as long as I can, a wisdom in not making decisions, not making decisions about things you can’t control, I’m painting the walls blue, worry is a much bigger thing than it should be, I take time to reflect on my thoughts, you write, a little notebook, a few sentences, I would stop a stranger, morality or wisdom, an American dollar at the current inflation rate, my spiritual belief gives me inner strength, duty and how people should act, a spiritual thing, neutral on it, just havin fun here, I’m ok with people having morals and values other than my own, you’re a mammal, like your young, take more information on non-mammalian morality, lost it for about six weeks, spent more money, can’t even make the joke, I avoid self-reflection, about mirrors?, I would rather someone else make the decision, for me I am uncertain, a mistaken trait, waitress, what do you like, what was popular, people are different, such a strange question to ask a waitress, interesting experience, deferring to someone else on your decision making, is this a steak restaurant, I treat others the way I would like to be treated, not as an asshole, not as a piece of shit, please pass the podcasting juice, neutral, uncertain, it is important that I understand the reasons for my actions, finding out why you’re doing things, realize you’re making mistakes, the reason I’m doing this, I’ve always done it this way, a better or more efficient way, all connected on a higher level, a lower level, sniffing, they probably do, perfume, axe body sprays, horrible perfumes, can’t grok them, I generally learn something from every person I meet, drive through at the restaurant, an interaction vs. a meeting, generally learn something, the circumstances under which they’ve been pushed, condo doesn’t let them in, exposed to diverse viewpoints, meaning drift, diversity, equity, inclusion, exclusion, hierarchy, monoculture, the quality of being fair and impartial, the meme, boxes, a shortage of boxes, not a box rich society, they’re pirating the game, someone should knock down that fence, eyes to look at this game, their kid is playing in it, they’re cheating, mr umpire knock down that wall, why doesn’t the tall guy put the little guy on his shoulders, somebody had to lift, don’t handle me any more than you have to, bad back, fairness, these words are all tricks now, liberation, he’s in a hole, he could be a Morlock, post box society, I don’t analyze my own behavior, I often don’t know what to tell people, if you do your best you’re probably be all right, I can only emit so many, I cannot filter my negative emotions, not as stoic, this is an are you depressed or not, there is no overall purpose to life, a sign of depression, people of different ages, you’re in a nursing home, what pills to put you on, how depressed are you at being old, do yourself in, grandchildren not visiting you, hold the ereader up, cognitive abilities declined, let audiobooks wash over me, the last question, this test is not good, what do you do, Kentucky in your car, get a flat, cellphone is on low battery and no signal, no carjack, need to learn to change a flat, be prepared, triple A equivalent, an uncle who knew how to fix fences and change tires, spry, one or two of his brothers, the hoping that somebody comes along, hope is not a plan, foreseeing, that’s what wisdom is, a carton of water, some oil, alternator died, superclever, very proud of myself, using the tools at hand, it’s when you are great, knowing your great, not needing renowned or acclaimed, no RE no AC, how proud were you?, learning how to ride a bicycle, just gave up, can swim very well, came so naturally, proud to be walking around, do something you’ve never been able to do before, writing your first essay that doesn’t suck, doing some of your own research, good times, something you have to learn, but for what purpose, what the problem is and how we should fix the problem, reading some Foundation, getting at what’s wrong with it, putting it out there, for your own benefit, shared interests, nobody is interested in Foundation (even those watching the tv show), Paul Krugman, he should have read Alfred Bester, Dune, go to the park, out there to look at things sometimes, getting the sun, vitamin d bro, sniff some pheromones, a raccoon came up to me, let it sniff me, bitten, what did it do, being bitten, startled, animals don’t bite just to taste, special kinda crazy, fear response, trying to be considered by it, be more leery, the whole rabies process, animals with rabies, the episode of Doctor Quinn, she’s a medicine woman, the best of western medicine, it’s all danger of the week, fear/danger, reality more twisted and weird than it is dangerous and fear, actual fucking vs. theoretical fucking, your pension, defund your housing, you need to know about it, Netflix and streaming services, cost money and doesn’t give me anything, that consumer culture horror, digitial subscriptions to three magazines, Seize The Press, anti-capitalist, they don’t have a press, a red triangle around it, you love tech, old tech and good tech that works, not a fetishist, a smartwatch, wearing shit, what do you need that for?, being productive, bad heart, low oxygen, commanded to get your steps in, conspicuous consumption, apple watches, bombs to bomb people, screen protector and case, two finicky about finding the right one, one of those questions, making decisions is really bad, when their is so many options, act by not acting, alpha haven’t happened, make up a set of principles, change your principles later, don’t turn down money, wasn’t a decision, just a policy, makes your life way better to cut things out, what criteria to abide by, made in Israel, I’m not going to buy that, who’s better, Android or Apple, an LG phone, good features, all the things that make a modern phone, stuck into the ecosystem, expandable memory, the way you don’t get screwed by the phone company, their cloud, forget about the privacy implications, keeps you in the ecosystem, it’s free just press this button, you have to fight against them, it is slightly better, Apple is very very closed, texting somebody in blue (vs. green), a way to suck you in and keep you broken, who you gonna believe me or your own research, he can’t get his banking app to work on his phone, look into sideloading, theoretically can be done, how robust is it?, the official app store, they don’t want you to see Alex Jones, find a way, Android is very capable of being sideloaded, windows traditionally that was the only way, if you get trained properly, play a game on a website, don’t let them trap you, fuck with your food, fuck with your phone, fuck with your life, frozen with fear and regret, very afraid of regret, did something really mean, legal career, doing your best at the time, can’t justify it, let it roll through me, paralyzed by regret, inform our future actions, massive decline at some point, still producing Jesse particles, back among the children, 4 days a week, doesn’t suck, there’s lots of patterns to it, never even think about writing it down, scheduling apps, too chaotic for voicemail, spam calls, text message is better, some more particles next time.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #264
